The Electronic Frontier Foundation tears into the Recording Industry Association of America's controversial lawsuit campaign as it looks back over the past four years

Against a climate of litigation
and DRM, the Electronic Frontier Foundation released “RIAA v. The People:
Four Years Later,” a
report (PDF) examining the entertainment’s anti-piracy efforts four years after
the first P2P lawsuits targeting users.

The 25-page report -- which includes nine pages of citations --
covers broad territory, chronicling the record industry’s various legal
campaigns and why each one has failed. Starting with the RIAA’s early attempts
to “sue the technology,” the EFF argues that each successive attempt to curb
piracy with litigation has no effect at best and, at worse, drives piracy even further underground: “In response to the RIAA lawsuits, many filesharers
are beginning to opt for new file sharing technologies that protect their
anonymity,” the EFF writes, “[and] infiltrating these private P2P circles is
much more difficult than simply trolling public P2P networks.”

Legitimate downloading services do not escape the EFF’s
analysis, either. Referring the DRM-encumbered downloads from stores like
iTunes, the EFF writes:

“While
these restrictions, when considered in a vacuum, may strike some as reasonable,
they make for a less-than-attractive carrot when dangled in front of music fans
used to the unencumbered MP3 files they find on P2P networks. At the same time,
the DRM technologies have not succeeded in keeping any “protected” songs off
the Internet. In fact, the existence of these restrictions gives otherwise
law-abiding customers a reason to seek out P2P channels when their legitimate
expectations are frustrated (after all, these are the customers who paid for
the music they could have obtained for free!).”

Interestingly, the EFF seems to feel that illegal file
sharing and P2P piracy may actually be in a state of regression: with the dropping
costs of high-capacity storage media, friends and social circles have returned
to swapping CDs instead of downloads; with the cost of optical media dropping,
this is easier than ever. Moreso, users are not just swapping CDs, but may also
be trading hard drives filled with music, allowing pirates to trade files at a rate faster than P2P networks.

The report ends with remarkable proposal: rather than
continuing lawsuits against its own customers, the EFF proposes a “voluntary
collective licensing scheme” not unlike the royalties systems used for
performance venues, radiostations, and restaurants. Essentially, P2P
filetrading would be legal if the trader paid a monthly fee:

“The
music industry forms one or more collecting societies, which then offers file
sharing music fans the opportunity to “get legit” in exchange for a reasonable
regular payment, say $5 per month. So long as they pay, the fans are free to
keep doing what they are going to do anyway -- share the music they love using
whatever software they like on whatever computer platform they prefer -- without
fear of lawsuits. The money collected gets divided among rightsholders based on
the popularity of their music. In exchange, file sharing music fans who pay (or
have their ISP or software provider or other intermediary
pay on their behalf) will be free to download whatever they like, using
whatever software works best for them. The more people share, the more money
goes to rights-holders. The more competition in P2P software, the more rapid
the innovation and improvement. The more freedom for fans to upload what they
care about, the deeper the catalog.”

The concept is not new, however, as companies like Napster
have already done it for a few years now with its “unlimited access” rental program,
where consumers have free access to a large library provided they keep paying
the monthly fee. The key difference between the EFF’s scheme and rental
services, however, is that users, not rightsholders, retain control over the
files downloaded, the software used for playback, and the means of acquisition;
a stark contrast to the “walled gardens” that permeate the digital music market
of today.

According to Ars
Technica, the idea
has already been passed around by EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann at a Beverly
Hills DRM conference last spring. The labels refused, citing that consumers
would “pay exactly once,” download everything they wanted, then immediately
cease all future payments.

"This is about money, not morality," says von Lohmann. "With a blanket
licensing solution, the RIAA can call off the lawyers and the
lobbyists, and universities can get back to education instead of
copyright enforcement."

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quote: Yet, I can purchase a big budget block buster movie which cost way more to produce, let alone the fact that DVD's also cost more to manufacture than CD's, for less than $20.

Err...you defanged your own alleged contradiction. "Block buster" movies have by definition already raked-in a few to several hundred million dollars at the box office before the movie goes to DVD sales and rental. The vast majority of the movie's production, distribution, and marketing costs have already been recouped along with, in many cases, a reasonable or customary profit. The pressure to recoup any outstanding costs or boost marginal returns through DVD sales and rentals is thus hugely lower. Revenues from DVD sales and rentals often equal or surpass the box office receipts of movies that by all accounts did reasonably well at the box office. In many cases, revenues from DVD sales and rentals are almost pure profit after direct cost of goods sold.

There is nothing remotely similar to this for music CDs. When a CD is released, it has not yet made a flat nickel. A promotional tour would have to be extraordinarily profitable to offset an unprofitable CD release. Most tours are barely profitable and done to drive sales of the album.

quote: If Music costs where more inline with actual value, then this wouldn't be an issue.

Right, and you get to decide what the "actual value" of music is rather than the people taking all the risks? I'm all with ya on that one. I think Acura owners would be far less likely to become a victim of car theft if Acura stopped grossly "over-charging" for their cars, which surely are worth much less than Acura's asking price (according to me...and I don't have to provide a single bit of support for that because "I'm the decider").

BTW, $10.98 ~ $12.98 was the typical new CD price 23 YEARS AGO (I purchased my first CD player in 1984), reflecting the average premium of $3.00 over the cassette price. The typical price of a new cassette in 1981 was famously documented for posterity when Tom Petty threatened to title his new album "$8.98". CD prices are cheaper today than cassettes were in 1981, after adjusting for inflation using the Consumer Price Index:

$8.98 in 1981 is equal to $21.19 in 2006 dollars

Ergo, if the price of music had kept pace with inflation like all other consumer products, a CD today should cost $21.00. Note this does not include the $3 premium we used to pay for CDs. Its based on the price of a cassette in 1981. You smarmy bastards pay less for music today than every generation since WWII, yet whine and moan about music being 'overpriced'. Its an excuse to steal, nothing more.

Ask any veteran police detective working larceny or theft if he has EVER known a thief to come-out and say "I steal because I want something for free, because the rules don't apply to me, and anyone who doesn't like it can go f-ck themselves." Nope, never seen it, never even heard of it, will be the universal reply.

They always wrap it in some self-serving justification, casting themselves as a 'victim' who is just 'righting' some perceived wrong, often stylized in a warped parallel to 'Robin Hood'. Weird, I must have missed the version where Robin Hood took from the rich and gave to the self.

Sorry, but it really is "overpriced". Music is not a necessity in life and there are plenty of other entertainment values today that cost less than $10-15 per 8 minutes, (runtime of those 2 songs per CD that made you buy it if you would).

I do not buy that argument at all. Entertainment, as you said, is not a necessity of life. What is not a necessity, becomes a luxury - and luxury come at a premium. Now it's not the same as staying in a 5 star hotel, its more of a 'common luxury'... and priced accordingly.

And since when is entertainment measured solely by runtime? Even if it is measured by runtime, I happen to listen to my favourite tracks more than once. A lot more than once. Sure a book will give more "hours for the $", but a bungee jump a lot less. Then again, I do not hear people say "Mangoes are overpriced, you could get so many more apples for the price". It's simply absurd to measure entertainment by time alone.

You're forgetting the most important thing, supply and demand. There's no demand for CDs at their current prices. Claim it's due to too few good artists, or that these artists rush out 80% crap after generating one good song, that OTH and satellite along with better consumer electronics receivers improved the quality of broadcast reception, or digital downloads increased whether it be for profit or pirated.

It really doesn't matter which we blame, when considering that the perceived market value of a CD is lower than their current pricing model. Once this situation is established, people will do many different things to get the music they want. P2P downloading happens to be the more popular method, but suppose that magically went away tomorrow. What would people do? They'd record OTH, trade CDs/CDR/DVD full of music. I'm going to speculate that most people who have the spare time to do all this P2P aren't particularly high wage earners, their time is less valuable and they just don't have the budget to buy the music.

They will just find another way to get it or do without, but doing without doesn't solve any problems the RIAA claims. The RIAA illusion is that they can conspire to control the market then demand a steady income stream from a public that has too many other entertainment distractions in the modern world like web surfing, gaming, hundreds of TV channels, etc. RIAA thinks they can sue towards one of three ends:

1) Make money from suing

2) Scare people into buying music they wouldn't otherwise

3) Raise the perceived value of music by keeping anyone from getting it for free

I've already listed a few reasons why #3 isn't going to happen. The music industries grown rate was culturally and technologically periodic. That period is over.

As for #2, people don't buy products from industries that try to scare them, except maybe with the exception of prescription drugs where the threat is indirect implication you will be sick or worse off without drug x.

#1 has an inherant flaw, that the music industry has not demonstrated loss beyond one digital upload per P2P download in many cases. Call that 1/10th of one CD, or $1. Beyond this restitution, let the punishment be the equivalent of stealing a $1 product from a store. When law catches up to technology, we should have a Petty Infringement penalty reflecting that there was quite negligible loss but still that a law was broken.

"This is about the Internet. Everything on the Internet is encrypted. This is not a BlackBerry-only issue. If they can't deal with the Internet, they should shut it off." -- RIM co-CEO Michael Lazaridis